Sunday, October 02, 2011

Brody Dalle in a Spinnerette - "It feels really good to get back to work"

Five years ago, The Distillers released Coral Fang, a crossover punk album that saw Brody Dalle become one of the best singers in the genre for years. The band split in 2006, Brody became a mother... and now she's finally back, with the equally enticing Spinnerette.

"It feels like 10 years' life has been packed into the last five," says Brody.

New download EP Ghetto Love is a taster for Spinnerette's rollicking self-titled album, out in February.

"Most of the album was written in 2004, the year prior to getting pregnant," says Brody, 29. "There's odds and ends from before that, Distillers days. I wrote in the studio too - I wrote Impaler at the last minute. It's about killing Vlad The Impaler for being such a b*****d. Based on my real life."

Brody doesn't believe there's a big difference of approach from her Distillers days, after writing the album with QOTSA's Alain Johannes.

"There was no real thought process, it just happened organically," she says.

"Al is a great friend. What he played on my songs was magical, but he came on board by accident. I asked Josh, 'How am I going to get these demos done?' and he said, 'Why not just go to Al?'"

Although Alain and her ex-Distillers bandmate Tony Bevilacqua played on the album, there will be a different line-up when Brody tours the album.

"Spinnerette isn't a band," she points out. "It's me and whichever musicians I want to work with at the time. It was an explosion, working with Al, within three hours we were like, 'Holy s***, what did we just do?' But it's really not a real band."

Brody admits it was hard to find her touring band - they do a one-off UK gig at Islington Academy on February 23.

"I wanted people with no baggage," she explains. "Confident players and nice people. It was f***ing hard to find them, I had to hunt high and low. The record was different again - Al and I worked so well together because we didn't censor or self-edit any ideas we had that should have been too wild."

The one major difference from The Distillers, at least vocally, is how much crisper Brody's voice sounds now.

"Yeah, because I haven't been on tour for so long," she laughs. "When we made The Distillers' albums, I still had trash throat from being on the road. You wait until I've done 10 shows, and I get trash throat again. People will come to the concerts and think, 'This isn't the same singer as the record.'"